Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Use of microfluidic chips a first in bitumen-gas analysis

29.02.2012

Process could save time and money for oil/gas industry

A University of Toronto research team has developed a process to analyze the behavior of bitumen in reservoirs using a microfluidic chip, a tool commonly associated with the field of medical diagnostics. The process may reduce the cost and time of analyzing bitumen-gas interaction in heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs.

Dr. David Sinton, Professor with the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Hossein Fadaei are using the chips to examine the way highly pressurized CO2 behaves when injected into bitumen. The new method, reported in the journal Energy & Fuels, could streamline the way fossil energy companies measure the diffusion of gases in heavier oils like bitumen.

"To my knowledge, this is the first application of microfluidics in the study of gas-bitumen diffusion," says Sinton. His project was funded in part by Carbon Management Canada, a national Networks of Centres of Excellence funding research to reduce CO2 emissions in the fossil energy industry and other large-scale emitters.

Bitumen and heavy oil are difficult to extract from reservoirs because they are thick and do not flow easily. There are several methods of extraction, one of which uses CO2-rich gas injections which helps liquify the bitumen for easier extraction. This process can supplement the steam-injection method which requires heavy inputs of energy and water, and it presents opportunities for sequestration of CO2 in the reservoir.

But, says Sinton, before companies pump CO2 into reservoirs they need to first determine how the CO2 and oil will behave under specific pressures and in specific rock formations. Conventional methods of analysis are conducted using about .5 L of bitumen and a process that can take hours or even days for a single test result.

Sinton and his colleagues use a small glass microchip to replicate a pore within a rock reservoir. The channels in the pore are 50 microns wide, or about half the diameter of a human hair. The device is initially filled with CO2 at low pressure and a small sample of bitumen is injected into the centre of the chip. High pressure CO2 is then injected at both ends of the chip and the swelling of the oil is measured over time.

"This takes 10 minutes and uses a nanoliter plug of sample. If you can do a test in a few minutes and perform many tests in parallel, that's a lot cheaper," he points out. "The experimental setup is also quite simple compared to existing methods."

The method developed by Sinton shows potential as a rapid, reliable approach that could be used by both researchers and the oil and gas industry. And because it uses such small samples, the method could also be employed using hazardous solvents.

Next steps involve studying many types of oil or combinations of diffusion gases at one time in one chip; expanding temperature and pressure ranges of tests to match the variety of conditions found down-hole and in bitumen processing, and adapting the method to work with less viscous oils and other fluids such as brine. Diffusion of CO2 into brine at high pressures is of particular interest for carbon sequestration applications.

Sinton is actively looking for industry partners. For information, he can be reached at sinton@mie.utoronto.ca.

Media Contact:

Ruth Klinkhammer, Communications Director Carbon Management Canada 403 210-7879 ruth.klinkhammer@cmc-nce.caDr. David Sinton SintonLab, University of Toronto sinton@mie.utoronto.caAbout Carbon Management Canada (www.cmc-nce.ca) Carbon Management Canada, a federal Networks of Centres of Excellence, is a national research network supported by the Canadian and Alberta governments as well as industry. CMC comprises over 150 academic researchers in 25 Canadian universities, all working to develop the technologies, the knowledge and the personnel to reduce carbon emissions in the fossil energy industry and other large-scale emitters. CMC currently funds 36 research projects for a total of $18 million.

Die letzten 5 Focus-News des innovations-reports im Überblick:

Physicists of the University of Würzburg have made an astonishing discovery in a specific type of topological insulators. The effect is due to the structure of the materials used. The researchers have now published their work in the journal Science.

Topological insulators are currently the hot topic in physics according to the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Only a few weeks ago, their importance was...

In recent years, lasers with ultrashort pulses (USP) down to the femtosecond range have become established on an industrial scale. They could advance some applications with the much-lauded “cold ablation” – if that meant they would then achieve more throughput. A new generation of process engineering that will address this issue in particular will be discussed at the “4th UKP Workshop – Ultrafast Laser Technology” in April 2017.

Even back in the 1990s, scientists were comparing materials processing with nanosecond, picosecond and femtosesecond pulses. The result was surprising:...

A multi-institutional research collaboration has created a novel approach for fabricating three-dimensional micro-optics through the shape-defined formation of porous silicon (PSi), with broad impacts in integrated optoelectronics, imaging, and photovoltaics.

Working with colleagues at Stanford and The Dow Chemical Company, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fabricated 3-D birefringent...

In experiments with magnetic atoms conducted at extremely low temperatures, scientists have demonstrated a unique phase of matter: The atoms form a new type of quantum liquid or quantum droplet state. These so called quantum droplets may preserve their form in absence of external confinement because of quantum effects. The joint team of experimental physicists from Innsbruck and theoretical physicists from Hannover report on their findings in the journal Physical Review X.

“Our Quantum droplets are in the gas phase but they still drop like a rock,” explains experimental physicist Francesca Ferlaino when talking about the...